


Rage

by zerixanne



Category: EterniaBound
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, fantroll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 07:57:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10589736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zerixanne/pseuds/zerixanne
Summary: Rewrite of the old Rage.Part one of two character expositions. Stanli is a little bit problematic.





	

Death isn’t permanent. It’ll all be okay. We all go on to a better place. It isn’t permanent. This is...better.

  
You repeat this over and over to yourself, but the words sound hollow, from an old recording in a far-off room. You clench your fists along the sides of your once-spotless jeans, attempting to calm your heaving chest. Thick, dusty blood soaks into the hem of your jeans.

  
You take a surprised step back, flinching at a drop of water hitting your shirt. Unfortunately it wasn't rain, just a single drop. A tear. You hate that emotions show up at the worst possible times.

  
Taking one last long sigh, you notice how hard your limbs are shaking, and how much of a mess you are drifts to the forefront of your mind. No, how much of a mess this whole situation is. Your face - spattered with blue blood and now streaked with brass-tinted tear tracks - is nothing compared to the glistening dirt and grass, surrounding you with what could be mistaken for dots of rainbow jewels, had the landscape not been adorned with mangled bodies. You knew each person, each life, each story, and now they’re gone. The trolls you had taught, the trolls you had lived with for sweeps - now they’ve left you alone.

  
You clench your teeth at the sound of a grating laugh. You slowly look up, your bleary, bloodshot eyes coming to a rest on her uncovered one. You sneer at how unaffected Halohi Tsuaii seems by this bloodbath.

  
She tilts her head and squints at you. “Why are you pouting over there, Xaviar? Crying over your dead boyfriend?”

  
Her voice is rough as a rusty nail on rock. It reverberates through your ears for a moment, before stabbing your mind with a realisation. She started this. She used the opportunity of attacking imps to murder three of your colleagues in cold blood, a smile on her face all the while.

  
You met her smiling gaze with an attempt at a fierce glare, and try to tell her this, tell her how horrible she was, tell her about all the terrible things she’s done until that devilish grin is gone from her face and is replaced with fear and understanding. Then you could kill her, only when she knows she truly deserves to die, when she’s practically reaching for a knife herself but it’s you who will be the one to send her to hell. But all that bubbles to your mouth is spit, mingled with a clot of coughed-up blood.

  
She laughs again, a hearty, full laugh. “You sure have some pretty big talk, but God, you’re pathetic. This is the fuckin’ apocalypse, dumbass, if you can’t handle a few of us keeling over, then you may as well shove your tail between your legs and scurry down some hidey-hole.”

  
You clench your fists so hard your shaking just gets worse, your words replaced with saliva and whatever other grime you managed to get stuck in your throat during the battle. A few more failed attempt only gives Halohi more entertainment, but finally you manage to scream.

  
“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” For once you don’t care about whatever’s rolling down your face. “You killed them! Lontal, Ayrrin, and Serger...they’re gone because of YOU. My moirail… You vile creature- killing them without a trace of remorse! This attack was a cover-up, I wouldn’t put it past you to have lead the imps here so you could murder them-”

  
“Wow.” Her eye narrowed and her grin tightened. “Very classy, blaming the former gravedigger for everything bad that happens. It isn’t like, oh, I don’t know, we’re all surrounded by imps with no conscious and an animal desire to kill for the sake of killing.”

  
“Sounds like someone I know.”

  
Halohi swung the shovel that was laid across her shoulders off and stabbed it into the dirt. It clanged rebelliously against some rock. She sneered. “You don’t know my life, you privileged ass. It wasn’t as if only six of us could hold off the hordes anyways - especially with two of them unarmed. So you’re just going to have to grow the hell up. You don’t have your picture-perfect life structure anymore. Just fucking face reality already, Lontal's gone- and while you're at it, leave Roluko the hell alone. Pissing her off is my job, you're a desperate wannabe anyway.”

  
You snapped, lunging at Halohi with fists outstretched. You threw punch after punch at her, but she stepped away from each as easy as if you were trying to grab a tuft of smoke. No matter how much power you willed into your arms, you only felt empty air. You couldn’t tell if your screaming was in your head or the hoarseness of your throat was from the layer of bile collecting there. One punch went too far, and you fell forward in the dirt.  
The whole world seemed to sway; tightly closing your eyes didn’t help much. Once the blood stopped roaring in your ears, you heard voices talking. You cracked one eye open to see Roluko standing a few feet away, yelling at Halohi.

  
“...just finished a fight!” She was gesticulating violently. “And you decide to go provoking already?! I know neither of us three have the best relationship but Christ all this dying has to stop somewhere-”

  
“You don’t think I know that?” Now Halohi was yelling too, her grin completely gone. “This situation sucks, that’s obvious! If it were up to me I would try and rough it alone but that’s suicide! I know that it was Stanli who started all this unease and blame, he can't keep his mouth shut for a goddamn second. He's gotten even loopier than me, if he has it in him to just snap like that at a bit of death.”

  
You stood up as they were talking. There was an eerie calm in your mind, filled with echoing white noise. Single thoughts blurred in and out of focus. There was no way you were going to be compared to Halohi. You put all this focus into your leg and kicked her square in the chest, cutting her next sentence off. Halohi stumbled back and fell, her head colliding with the dirt. You turned to Roluko. Her facade of horror and fury didn’t fool you, though, and you drew your sword and advanced towards her. Before she could step back, you hooked her foot, causing her to fall in a much more graceful manner than Halohi. You stepped up beside her.

  
“I’m sorry,” you said, your voice coming out much more gravelly than you expected, “but something’s been bothering me.”

  
You dropped, your knee striking the middle of her chest so hard she was left gasping. You swung your other foot up, pressing the sole hard into her right side of her face.

  
“I love you, Roluko, but this disgusting scar you have really ruins your perfect visage. Don't worry, though, I should be able to remedy that easily.”

  
You have the tip of your sword dangerously close to her face, then press down on the top left side of her face. You keep a steady hand through her increasing struggles, pressing your foot down hard when she spits blood at you, grabbing her hands and holding them down above her head when she gains enough awareness to move them. You look directly into her one visible, wide eye, and slice down.

  
You move your foot off her face. You have to admire your handiwork; her scars are visibly identical, or at least from what you can tell beneath her poorly masked moans of pain and the blood flowing down the side of her face. You allow yourself a few moments more to stare down at her.

  
You switch which hand is holding hers and caress her non-bloodied cheek. She's too exhausted to do anything beyond a half-hearted twitch at your touch. When she finally relents and looks up at you you give her a sad smile.  
“Though at least what I can see is perfect now, I'm afraid I can't say the same for your other scars. If I tried to recreate them you'd die halfway through and we can't have that, can we?” You click your tongue and give your head a good-natured shake. Your voice quiet to a near-whisper. “Honestly, I have to commemorate you for living like… this for this long. You were probably led astray by that horrendous Tsuaii. But of not save you, I can at least give you a perfectly symmetrical death.”

  
You run your thumb over her cheekbone one last time, then release your hands and jerk your knee up into her jaw with all the strength you could muster.

* * *

 

As your consciousness flicks back to life and the stars in your vision dissipate, the first thing you see is the harsh glint of a sword. You frantically blink the world into focus and Stanli takes form; he's staring down at you with lifeless yet rapt eyes that glint like his sword, which he's raising high above his head. It isn't until a hairline-thin fracture of red trickles down the blade that all the pain comes crashing down.

  
It's pounding at you dully from so many directions that you find yourself paralysed, unable to even scream from the blood slowly filling up your mouth and the suspiciously knee-shaped circle of fractures and bruises on your jaw and throat. All you can do is stare wildly back at him and try not to inhale too much blood.

  
All Stanli's focus is on you, ignoring the red now dripping on his head and staining his hands, ignoring your pleading eyes, ignoring a pebble skipping down the hill and striking him in the cheek. He tenses, ready to strike, and the sickly sweet words of “I love you” hit your ears a second after his mouth moves.

  
A burst of adrenaline shoves you backwards, throwing your feet over your head and rolling a few times before slamming you face-first a few feet away. You heave blood and match Stanli’s gaze of shock and anger. It suddenly clicks in your mind that the words that had spurred you back were a harsh yell of “MOVE, YONAMI” when a speeding train of rock and earth slams into Stanli's stoic form.

  
The dust settles and the only sounds are of you getting rid of the last of the blood in your throat and a few stray pebbles coming to a rest among the others. A shadow falls over you. You spit out a clot and look up through your tangled bangs to see Halohi standing over you, a look of faint amusement on her face. She huffs out a breath through her nose and spins on her heel.

  
“Good to know you made it out alive,” she calls as she begins to stab at the debris with her now-dented shovel. “I wasn't sure you had it in you to move like that. And since you can't ask, yeah, I started the landslide. A couple good whacks is all it needed to go tumbling down. That gross cunt deserved worse, but I'm not good at quick thinking. Gotta thank him for being so obsessed, though; made it easy to slip away without him noticing.”

  
Apparently finding what she was looking for, Halohi plunges her shovel in a crack of the rock pile. She yanks it out and a thick trail of brass blood follows. She smears some of it into the shovel’s head, a patch of yellow already staining to match the rusted-on collage of other colours. Her hand goes slack and the shovel swung down, striking the rock beneath her with a single discordant note. She turns to you and narrows her eye. Halohi fiddles with something you can't make out from this distance and with the red that's beginning to cloud up your vision again. When you finally blink it away, she's standing a few feet away from you, an unreadable expression in her eyes.

  
“I told someone to come,” she said matter-of-factly. Halohi swayed slightly, lingering, then once more turned on her heel and stalked off across the grass. Your vision blacks out and your head falls into a pool of your own blood.


End file.
